Legal Experts Warn FCC’s Brendan Carr Edging Toward ‘Coercion’

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2025 – Legal scholars and free speech advocates warned Wednesday that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr’s increasingly vocal interventions in broadcast content decisions were edging toward coercion.

“The out-in-the-open nature of the FCC actions and Chairman Carr’s statements of late really are a textbook illustration of the difference between persuasion and coercion,” said veteran First Amendment attorney Bob Corn-Revere.

Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute event, senior fellow Clay Calvert cited a string of recent examples in which Carr publicly pressured networks or stations over perceived political bias.